Journal Mekkis's Journal: An Analysis of Iran, Iraq & International Terrorism: Par 1
The saber-rattling between the United States and Iran has grown deafening of late, which has gotten me thinking. I find it important to analyze world politics from many perspectives, because not to do so is to allow someone else to do their thinking for you; to accept unthinkingly the line handed to you by those in power. I think it is acceptable to believe that that those in power are going to sell a line that most benefits them.
With this in mind, I turn my thoughts toward Iran. First, let's look at the U.S.'s current concerns: first, Iran's nuclear program; second, Iran's financing of international terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.
It is not hard to determine the motives behind either activity, but for the moment let us focus on their nuclear program. As an exercise, let's take the Iranian perspective on events in the past six years. President George W. Bush's infamous speech identified Iran as one of the three countries that form the "Axis of Evil", with Iraq and North Korea being the other two. Never mind that Iran and Iraq had virtually no diplomatic ties with each other due to the bitter war between them during the 1980s, and North Korea has virtually no diplomatic nor trading ties with anyone, President Bush insinuated that these three countries allied with one another to destroy the United States, much as the Axis Powers were during World War II. Iran/U.S. relations had warmed somewhat during the Bush I and Clinton years; therefore this must have come as a surprise-- and a bad one at that.
Not long thereafter, the United States declared war on Iraq and invaded, using pretexts that were quickly debunked. Within the context of the past four years, said pretexts for war have only been proven increasingly false. The invasion was done with the acquiescense (if not actual support) of the United Nations, and therefore in Iran's perspective, the Western World in general. Then the "Memogate" scandal of 2004 (when an aide within Britain's Blair Administration leaked a document about the run-up to the Iraq war) made it apparent that the United States had been devoted to attacking & invading Iraq virtually from the moment the Bush Administration took office. Add to this the construction of U.S. military bases in Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. When all these events are taken in context of the "Axis of Evil" speech, the U.S. intent toward Iran must seem very ominous.
Nor has the U.S. had a clean record with Iran. During the 1950s, Iran had a democratic revolution. The Iranian people threw out its dictator, the Shah, and subsequently elected a democratic government. Naturally, the ability of the Iranian people to choose their own fates must have been a threat to U.S. and British interests in the region. This was due to the fact that a conglomerate of U.S. and (mostly) British companies controlled the oil-producing areas within Iran at the time and had supported the Shah. Add to this the proximity of Iran to the U.S.S.R., and it becomes obvious that Iranian self-determination could not be tolerated-- at least by the U.S. Enter Kermit Roosevelt. Roosevelt holds the distinction of being the CIA operative who single-handedly destabilized Iran's fledgeling democracy and created conditions under which the U.S. could re-install the previous dictatorship. Which naturally, they did. The Shah, grateful at having been returned to the Peacock Throne from exile in the casinos of Monaco, went back to the gleeful brutalization of his subjects-- offering Western oil companies free reign within Iran's oil fields as repayment. To put you in the proper mindset, imagine if France had helped to destabilize America's fledgeling democracy immediately after the War for Independence and turned the colonies back over to British rule-- who then offered the French free reign in fur trapping and timber extraction. That would have rankled, wouldn't it've?
Keep this in mind when, twenty-five years later, Iran's religious revolution took place. The Ayatollah Khomeni demanded Western companies be thrown out, and Iran (horror of horrors) nationalized its oil production. The general reaction of Americans to Iranian students chanting "Death to America" was "Where did all this come from?". The general cluelessness must have rankled Iran still further: how could the people of a nation so powerful have such a short memory? Could they really be that dim and ignorant? (Keep in mind Iran, also known as Persia, has a history stretching back further than ancient Greece.) Then, shortly thereafter, came the hostage crisis. Unfortunate business, all round. Nevertheless, the dentention of hostages within the embassy for over a year pales in comparison to a quarter-century of torture and murder conducted by the Shah while the U.S. looked the other way. Really puts it into perspective, doesn't it?
Let's fast-forward to the current "nuclear crisis". Iran has declared an interest in developing nuclear power, as allowed under international law. It has begun enriching uranium in an attempt to do this. The U.S. has stated its suspicion that Iran is using this nuclear power program to secretly develop a nuclear weapon and has demanded Iran stop enriching fuel, and has demanded the U.N. conduct inspections. Iran has allowed the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency very limited inspections and has refused to cooperate further. The U.S. has threatened to use the U.N. to levy sanctions, but this would have limited effect. One, Russia gets a lot of its oil from Iran. Russia has veto power, and it has declared it would not support sanctions. The same goes for China. Even if the U.S. were able to twist arms enough to get a sanctions passed, Iran's pretty self-sufficient and it could continue trading, albeit illicitly. So the enrichment continues and the saber-rattling grows louder...
Let's pause a moment and look at nuclear weapons. Let's assume Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and considering all the factors I've just discussed why wouldn't they? The purpose of a nuclear weapon has long been defined as a "shield" rather than a "sword". It is as a deterrent to warfare, conventional or otherwise. The horror that nuclear weapons presents is so grave that they are considered a "weapon of last resort" and a country crazy/stupid enough to use one offensively would be targeted for retaliation by all the other nuclear powers and totally annihilated. Generations of that nation's people would be left twisted and starving. Such a horror would rule out use as an offensive weapon, and it would rule out even the provision of nuclear weapons to a third party crazy/stupid enough to employ them (such as a terrorist organization). This is because such provision could be tracked back to the nation responsible and again, it --and possibly several other suspect nations -- would be targeted for annihilation. No, a nuclear weapon is as a deterrent against conventional warfare, because no nation would blame a nation for using one againt enemy troops on its own soil. Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, therefore, would make it much more difficult for the U.S. to invade Iran as it did Iraq.
So long story short: from the Iranian perspective, the U.S. has a bad history with Iran over the past fifty years or so. It has a history of aggression against countries who have resources it wants, and a history of trying to bamboozle, bullshit and/or bully the rest of the Western World into allowing it its way. It has bases surrounding Iran, its president has shown hostile intent and refused all diplomatic entreaties, including a personal letter president-to-president -- and now, is openly discussing the possibility of nuclear attack. The U.N. has shown itself to be at best, helpless to stop U.S. aggression, and at worst, a rubber stamp for Western interests.
When taking all of this into consideration, you tell me: why should Iran cooperate with U.S. and U.N. demands?
Next Episode: an analysis of Iran's funding of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, plus a bonus! An analysis of holocaust denial in the Muslim world in context of Iran.
With this in mind, I turn my thoughts toward Iran. First, let's look at the U.S.'s current concerns: first, Iran's nuclear program; second, Iran's financing of international terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.
It is not hard to determine the motives behind either activity, but for the moment let us focus on their nuclear program. As an exercise, let's take the Iranian perspective on events in the past six years. President George W. Bush's infamous speech identified Iran as one of the three countries that form the "Axis of Evil", with Iraq and North Korea being the other two. Never mind that Iran and Iraq had virtually no diplomatic ties with each other due to the bitter war between them during the 1980s, and North Korea has virtually no diplomatic nor trading ties with anyone, President Bush insinuated that these three countries allied with one another to destroy the United States, much as the Axis Powers were during World War II. Iran/U.S. relations had warmed somewhat during the Bush I and Clinton years; therefore this must have come as a surprise-- and a bad one at that.
Not long thereafter, the United States declared war on Iraq and invaded, using pretexts that were quickly debunked. Within the context of the past four years, said pretexts for war have only been proven increasingly false. The invasion was done with the acquiescense (if not actual support) of the United Nations, and therefore in Iran's perspective, the Western World in general. Then the "Memogate" scandal of 2004 (when an aide within Britain's Blair Administration leaked a document about the run-up to the Iraq war) made it apparent that the United States had been devoted to attacking & invading Iraq virtually from the moment the Bush Administration took office. Add to this the construction of U.S. military bases in Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. When all these events are taken in context of the "Axis of Evil" speech, the U.S. intent toward Iran must seem very ominous.
Nor has the U.S. had a clean record with Iran. During the 1950s, Iran had a democratic revolution. The Iranian people threw out its dictator, the Shah, and subsequently elected a democratic government. Naturally, the ability of the Iranian people to choose their own fates must have been a threat to U.S. and British interests in the region. This was due to the fact that a conglomerate of U.S. and (mostly) British companies controlled the oil-producing areas within Iran at the time and had supported the Shah. Add to this the proximity of Iran to the U.S.S.R., and it becomes obvious that Iranian self-determination could not be tolerated-- at least by the U.S. Enter Kermit Roosevelt. Roosevelt holds the distinction of being the CIA operative who single-handedly destabilized Iran's fledgeling democracy and created conditions under which the U.S. could re-install the previous dictatorship. Which naturally, they did. The Shah, grateful at having been returned to the Peacock Throne from exile in the casinos of Monaco, went back to the gleeful brutalization of his subjects-- offering Western oil companies free reign within Iran's oil fields as repayment. To put you in the proper mindset, imagine if France had helped to destabilize America's fledgeling democracy immediately after the War for Independence and turned the colonies back over to British rule-- who then offered the French free reign in fur trapping and timber extraction. That would have rankled, wouldn't it've?
Keep this in mind when, twenty-five years later, Iran's religious revolution took place. The Ayatollah Khomeni demanded Western companies be thrown out, and Iran (horror of horrors) nationalized its oil production. The general reaction of Americans to Iranian students chanting "Death to America" was "Where did all this come from?". The general cluelessness must have rankled Iran still further: how could the people of a nation so powerful have such a short memory? Could they really be that dim and ignorant? (Keep in mind Iran, also known as Persia, has a history stretching back further than ancient Greece.) Then, shortly thereafter, came the hostage crisis. Unfortunate business, all round. Nevertheless, the dentention of hostages within the embassy for over a year pales in comparison to a quarter-century of torture and murder conducted by the Shah while the U.S. looked the other way. Really puts it into perspective, doesn't it?
Let's fast-forward to the current "nuclear crisis". Iran has declared an interest in developing nuclear power, as allowed under international law. It has begun enriching uranium in an attempt to do this. The U.S. has stated its suspicion that Iran is using this nuclear power program to secretly develop a nuclear weapon and has demanded Iran stop enriching fuel, and has demanded the U.N. conduct inspections. Iran has allowed the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency very limited inspections and has refused to cooperate further. The U.S. has threatened to use the U.N. to levy sanctions, but this would have limited effect. One, Russia gets a lot of its oil from Iran. Russia has veto power, and it has declared it would not support sanctions. The same goes for China. Even if the U.S. were able to twist arms enough to get a sanctions passed, Iran's pretty self-sufficient and it could continue trading, albeit illicitly. So the enrichment continues and the saber-rattling grows louder...
Let's pause a moment and look at nuclear weapons. Let's assume Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and considering all the factors I've just discussed why wouldn't they? The purpose of a nuclear weapon has long been defined as a "shield" rather than a "sword". It is as a deterrent to warfare, conventional or otherwise. The horror that nuclear weapons presents is so grave that they are considered a "weapon of last resort" and a country crazy/stupid enough to use one offensively would be targeted for retaliation by all the other nuclear powers and totally annihilated. Generations of that nation's people would be left twisted and starving. Such a horror would rule out use as an offensive weapon, and it would rule out even the provision of nuclear weapons to a third party crazy/stupid enough to employ them (such as a terrorist organization). This is because such provision could be tracked back to the nation responsible and again, it --and possibly several other suspect nations -- would be targeted for annihilation. No, a nuclear weapon is as a deterrent against conventional warfare, because no nation would blame a nation for using one againt enemy troops on its own soil. Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, therefore, would make it much more difficult for the U.S. to invade Iran as it did Iraq.
So long story short: from the Iranian perspective, the U.S. has a bad history with Iran over the past fifty years or so. It has a history of aggression against countries who have resources it wants, and a history of trying to bamboozle, bullshit and/or bully the rest of the Western World into allowing it its way. It has bases surrounding Iran, its president has shown hostile intent and refused all diplomatic entreaties, including a personal letter president-to-president -- and now, is openly discussing the possibility of nuclear attack. The U.N. has shown itself to be at best, helpless to stop U.S. aggression, and at worst, a rubber stamp for Western interests.
When taking all of this into consideration, you tell me: why should Iran cooperate with U.S. and U.N. demands?
Next Episode: an analysis of Iran's funding of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, plus a bonus! An analysis of holocaust denial in the Muslim world in context of Iran.
Eve online (Score:1)
In light of this I'm rather suspicious of major media news releases. By default the news releases must, based on the premise above, support the goals of the people involved. In the terms of Eve Online this was